Europe is the western peninsula of the supercontinent of Eurasia. Geographically, its boundaries are usually taken to be the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans in the west and north, the Ural mountains in Russia to the east, the Caspian Sea, Caucasus mountains and Black Sea in the south east and the Mediterranean Sea in the south. It’s a bit arbitrary, though. Russia and Turkey are both divided between Europe and Asia. Armenia and Georgia are generally considered to be culturally European, though some geographers place them in Asia, while neighbouring Azerbaijan is more often thought of as Asian, although its football team takes part in the European qualifi ers. Mind you, so does Kazakhstan, a small part of which is apparently in Europe, and Israel, which isn’t at all, but also gets to participate in that high point of European culture, the Eurovision Song Contest. Depending on who you believe, the centre of Europe is either in Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Norway, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Austria or Ukraine. We said it was arbitrary…
Recent penalty shoot-outs notwithstanding, Britain’s best mates in Europe are the Portuguese. The Anglo-Portuguese alliance was signed in 1373, and has remained in force ever since, despite Cristiano Ronaldo’s antics. Portugal is one of the few countries in Europe that Britain has never been at war with. When not busy fighting the Irish, Scots, Welsh or each other, the English have been at war with France (for about 200 years in total), Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Denmark, Norway, Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Finland, to name but a few. Bizarrely, the Isles of Scilly were officially at war with The Netherlands until 1986. The Dutch declared war on the islands in 1651, then forgot about it. A peace treaty was finally signed in 1986, after a war that had lasted 335 years, though thankfully without any casualties.
Never. Although there are regulations for the size and quality of fruit and vegetables traded internationally, nobody ever decreed that all bananas must be straight. This is one of the many myths about ‘barmy Brussels bureaucrats’ invented by certain British newspapers. You might also have read that Europe has banned lollipop ladies’ lollipops, firemen’s poles and shepherds’ crooks, not to mention corgis, cheddar cheese, smoky bacon crisps, milk bottles, mushy peas, swings and rocking horses. All lies. Nor has the EU ever told tightrope walkers to wear hard hats or lorry drivers to eat muesli for breakfast, suggested that Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Station are renamed to save offending the French or that mountains have warning signs saying ‘High Up’, or claimed that kilts should be labelled ‘women’s wear’.
While Europe’s history is one of invasions and empires, wars and shifting borders, one little enclave in northern Italy has remained oblivious to it all. The Most Serene Republic of San Marino – which has a population of under 30,000 and an area about a fifth of the size of the Isle of Wight – was founded by Marinus, a Christian stonemason fleeing persecution, in AD 301. Somehow, it’s remained independent ever since, making it the oldest republic in the world. San Marino – like fellow microstates Liechtenstein and Andorra – is a throwback to the days when Europe was made up of tiny city states. The Sammarinese have the highest life expectancy in Europe at 73.4 years, and a low crime rate: the last time they executed a criminal was in 1468.
In almost every language, the continent is known by some form of the name Europa. In Greek mythology, Europa wasn’t actually European. She was a Phoenician woman (from modern day Syria or Lebanon) who caught the eye of Zeus. The sexually-deviant king of the gods, who had a thing for becoming some sort of animal in order to seduce mortals he fancied, turned himself into a white bull and carried her off to Crete. That’s why there’s a half-naked woman sitting on a bull on the back of the Greek two-Euro coin, though why anyone would be more likely to fall for a bull, rather than a god, isn’t clear. An alternative suggestion is that the name comes from an ancient Middle Eastern word, ereb, meaning ‘land of the setting sun’.
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